Verdun battle nickname11/21/2023 ![]() In 1898, Mangin joined Marchand on his expedition to Fashoda with children in tow. In 1893 he was made a Knight of the Legion d'honneur. He was wounded three times and returned to France in 1892. During this period he learnt Bambara, the lingua-franca of Mali. He was sent to Sudan, serving under Jean-Baptiste Marchand and gained further experience in Mali, French North Africa. He joined the 1st Marine Infantry Regiment based in Cherbourg. He reapplied and was accepted in Saint-Cyr in 1886 attaining the rank of Sub-Lieutenant in 1888. After initially failing to gain entrance to Saint-Cyr, he joined the 77th Infantry Regiment in 1885. He died in 1981.Charles Emmanuel Marie Mangin (6 July 1866 – ) was a French general during World War I.Ĭharles Mangin was born on 6 July 1866 in Sarrebourg. Holt’s letters were later published in The Great War at Home and Abroad: The World War I Diaries and Letters of W. I had to call myself names before I got up nerve enough.” I think the hardest thing I did was to go back again alone the next night. I had other close calls but that was the closest and shook me up most. ![]() The fellow with me grabbed me and led me the hundred yards or so to the post where the doctor gave me a little stuff and where I became alright again in a few hours except that I was a little intoxicated from the gas for a while. I gasped, choked and felt the extreme terror of the man who goes under in the water and will clutch at a straw. ![]() If it hadn’t been for the fellow with me I probably wouldn’t be writing this letter because I couldn’t see, my eyes were running water and burning, so was my nose and I could hardly breathe. I got several breathes of the strong solution right from the shell before it got diluted with much air. ![]() As it was I was dazed, knocked down and my gas mask knocked off. If it hadn’t been for my helmet my head would have been cracked. “Something hit me on the head, making a big dent in my helmet and raising a bump on my head. READ MORE: Life in the Trenches of World War I You could often see old bones, boots, clothing and things besides lots of recent ones.” The letter’s most vivid passage, however, recounted his own experiences under fire, including an incident in which he was struck by a shell containing poisonous gas. “Besides the desolation visible to the eye there was the desolation visible to the nose. Holt described the ruined countryside and villages around Verdun, as well as the sights-and stench-of constant battle. It would take a book to tell about all that happened there and when I try to write, little incidents entirely unconnected come to my mind so I don’t know where or how to begin.” As the fighting is stiff there always the statement is probably true for all times, it certainly is true of Verdun during an attack. “The French have a saying to the effect that no one comes out of Verdun the same. “Dear Lois,” Holt began his letter, written while he was in Paris on leave, “enjoying the luxuries of life including ice cream, sheets, cafes and things.” The bulk of Holt’s letter discussed his experiences at the fortress city of Verdun, where French and German troops had battled for an excruciating 10 months in 1916 and where fighting continued throughout the following year. He later joined the American Air Service, receiving his pilot commission as a first lieutenant. ![]() On September 1, 1917, American soldier Stull Holt writes a letter home recounting some of his battlefield experiences on the Western Front at Verdun, France.īorn in New York City in 1896, Holt served during World War I as a driver with the American Ambulance Field Service. ![]()
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